<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Understanding Zuko by AlyssiaInWonderland</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25819288">Understanding Zuko</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssiaInWonderland/pseuds/AlyssiaInWonderland'>AlyssiaInWonderland</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crushes, Fluff, For no reason, Gen, Honest, Light Angst, M/M, Oblivious Sokka (Avatar), Pre-Relationship, Sokka keeps observing Zuko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 12:07:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,254</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25819288</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssiaInWonderland/pseuds/AlyssiaInWonderland</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>4 times Sokka had to reconsider his opinion of Zuko, and 1 time he had a small epiphany.</p><p>Aka: an excuse to write a bunch of times that Sokka observes Zuko, and his reaction to those observations. Not that Sokka is fixating on Zuko. Honest.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>354</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Understanding Zuko</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>1. Young</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re just a teenager!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aang’s words kept floating back into Sokka’s mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Initially, Sokka hadn’t really registered what that meant. He’d been focussed on gathering his resolve, on trying his best to be a man and fight to protect his small, vulnerable village. Later, he’d been focussed on making sure he stayed with Katara and Aang, so they wouldn’t go anywhere alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now he had time to think about it, after they’d rescued Aang from the Fire Nation Prince, he could remember Zuko’s face, and see the youth behind the scar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was disconcerting. He’d spent his entire life thinking of the enemy as all grown men, fierce and cruel and unyielding. Stronger than him, bigger than him; a threat he had to face to prove himself, but a threat like an implacable wall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The reality had been so very different.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko had been formidable, yes, but he’d also been impulsive. Angry with the whole world, grasping at strength as if it would ground him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That feeling was all too familiarly adolescent, Sokka thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Prince Zuko was terrifying, and a firebender who fought with everything he had. But he was also sixteen; Hakoda would have thought the teenager too young for a war. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just like Sokka.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>2. Stubborn</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka honestly struggled to believe just how incredibly boneheaded Zuko had to be, to have managed to infiltrate the Northern Water Tribe, break into a secretive, spiritual haven, and kidnap the Avatar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was it a terrible, contingency-less plan, that may have resulted in Zuko’s death? Yes, absolutely. Was it ultimately unsuccessful? Conclusively. Was it so absurdly dangerous a plan that Sokka wondered if the Prince was self-destructive, over simply that hubristic? Certainly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was it totally inadmirable? No.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If anything, emphasized the sheer determination that Zuko had, to catch them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was unsettling, how firmly resolved he was. How ready he seemed to commit near-suicidal acts, just to capture the Avatar for his Nation’s honour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if nothing else about the Prince of the Fire Nation was respectable; he was certainly stubborn in the face of truly ridiculous odds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka wished that wasn’t quite so impressive.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>3. Awkward</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>When Zuko first arrived at the Western Air Temple, Sokka thought a lot about how strangely he was acting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko, now that he had to actually speak to them on civil terms, seemed unable to reach any kind of monologue; clearly his edgy speeches had been clipped along with his firebending.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, Sokka wondered if the behaviour should make him suspicious. Zuko seemed erratic, and it could be because he was a terrible actor just waiting to betray them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But after watching Zuko try, and fail, to approach Katara to ask if he could help with the dishes, or the cooking fire, approximately five times in one night, he figured it out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t deception, or residual snobbishness from his palatial upbringing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko was awkward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka determinedly did not find it endearing. Even if Zuko’s attempts to be helpful were kind of sweet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>4. Lonely</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>On the journey back from the prison, Sokka was fairly busy basking in the fact he had his father back. The congratulations and hugs from Hakoda, though, were not as smooth as he’d hoped - partly because he felt guilty revelling in it while Katara was probably worrying. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it was also because Zuko wasn’t engaging with anyone, for most of the journey.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Initially, Sokka had thought it was just a brooding thing, where Zuko wasn’t good with company. Awkwardness was also a potential factor. But Zuko seemed a bit too distracted, a bit too on edge for it to just be the sheer power of social ineptitude.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Occasionally, Sokka would catch Zuko staring at him and Hakkoda, or him and Suki, and then he’d look away, as if embarrassed, caught coveting something not meant for him. He didn’t blush when Suki talked to him though, so it almost certainly wasn’t a crush, and thank the spirits those signs weren’t there for Hakoda either, or Sokka might have screamed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then it hit him; two things, specifically, and Sokka cursed himself for being an idiot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mai had been Zuko’s girlfriend, once, and she’d saved them; of course Zuko was fixating on him and Suki, who were also partners. And, judging by Ozai’s reputation and behaviour on seeing Zuko, the fixation on father-son interactions made sense as well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko wasn’t awkward, or brooding exactly. He was worried.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Worried, and maybe lonely, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka made a mental note to be sure to drag Zuko into the circle around the fire more often. It’d be good for him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>5. Cute</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka was up early to get in some sword practise. He liked to pretend that he hadn’t made a habit of it, but he had. He’d grown used to seeing Zuko meditating out in the first rays of sunlight, as he headed out, and Zuko vanished when he got back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, though, when he headed out, Zuko had company for his meditation. Aang was next to him, peacefully sharing the sun. Sokka had never understood how Aang, normally such a ball of chaotic energy, could manage to sit quite so still, but it worked for him, so who was Sokka to judge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meditation was not the best way to practise swordsmanship however, so he headed out to his practise, stepping through the manoeuvres and drills while the sun began to heat up the day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time he was ready to go back to the temple, it was growing warmer; enough that Katara had probably woken up, and would be ready to yell at him if he didn’t offer his help to prepare, especially since Zuko had said he and Aang would be late due to firebending practise; which they were now, apparently, content to start. The trip to the origins of firebending had helped the both of them. Sokka didn’t know how to feel about that; fire was dangerous, but it was necessary.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He trudged back into camp, and waved to Katara, who grinned, surprisingly cheerful this morning. She jerked her head in the direction of a courtyard, smiling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka joined her, and peered at where she was watching Zuko and Aang. Stepping through katas, Aang made a flame that seemed far more controlled than his previous attempts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t like it,” She said, though her tone was no longer hostile. “But Aang’s doing really well at fire-bending, this time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka watching Zuko gently correct Aang’s stance by carefully nudging his limbs into place, just a few centimetres difference seeming to matter a great deal. Then he said something they couldn’t hear, and Aang stepped back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko seemed to flow through the katas, movement efficient and centred where Aang’s was enthusiastic. The fire cast brightness and shadow across his face, lighting up his grin when he turned to Aang, nodding as if his demonstration was something that made him proud to have achieved. Aang looked delighted, and the continuing happiness on Zuko’s features, the power behind his movements, all conspired to bring Sokka to one specific realisation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh.” He said out loud. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. I didn’t have a clue Zuko would be such a good teacher.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Sokka answered, faintly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“Yeah.” Sokka nodded, and grabbed the rice, hauling it to the fire to avoid Katara’s inspection.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Apparently, for some bizarre reason, his brain had decided that Zuko being a good teacher, and a good fire-bender, was cute.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe if he focussed on the rice, he could avoid thinking about it.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi! Hope this was enjoyable for you all! As ever, comments and kudos feed my dark soul!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>